Ancestry
by Obsidian Blade
Summary: [REF]Following the total breakdown of the relationship with her father, Raven sets out on a Pokémon journey in the hope of gaining control over her life. But in a world where personal revenge has set the stakes so high true freedom may be an impossibility
1. Sticks and Stones

**Ancestry**  
_The Mechyena Saga_

**O**bsidian** B**lade

I. Sticks and Stones.

The bleacher hurt. No, that didn't do it justice. The bleacher hurt _a lot_. And it was cold, the unforgiving metal crushing my breast underneath me even as the edge dug into my cheek, forced against the cheekbone by the odd angle I'd hit it at. Even though common sense stated clearly that if all this was so I should just get up, I heaved a heavy sigh and closed my eyes, leaning my weight back until I was resting mostly on my knees. The rough cement floor wasn't ideal but an improvement is an improvement.

"Raven!" called my father from the raised arena behind me, his voice harsh with irritation, "Get up, girl!"

I made a cradle of my muscular arms, bound with combat tape almost to the elbow, and rested my head within, unresponsive.

"Well?"

Despite his weight, he made very little sound vaulting the ropes encircling the ring and landing level with the bleachers but it was enough for me to be aware of his approach, thin soles padding on the dusty floor. His massive hand clasped my shoulder too tightly, fingers pressing painfully against my collarbone. It turned me easily, as though I were a rag doll, and I didn't resist, my head rolling limply on my neck so that I wouldn't have to meet his gaze.

Growling angrily, he shook me, barking, "Get up and tell me what went wrong there!"

He knew, of course – this was just another test, one to which I knew the answer. The brief fight was still crystal clear in my mind, from the blows traded to the way his advice played through my skull as we fought. I had been perfectly focused at first…

_My eyes never left his chest even as I adjusted my stance a fraction of an inch, hands already balled into fists. _

_**All attacks make the torso move. Even the slightest twitch can give away an oncoming attack.**_

_And there, there it was: a ripple in the cloth hanging from his left shoulder. Immediately I leapt forwards, ducking to avoid the punch, only to have his knee jerk up hard into my stomach, forcing the breath from my lungs. _

"_Too damn easy to trick!" he bellowed as I staggered back, clutching at my abdomen and gulping in vain for air, "And now wide open!"_

_**Always push every advantage to its full.**_

_Of course he wasn't going to forget his own advice, even when it was his flesh and blood breathless and helpless in front of him. Mercilessly the man threw himself into a hard roundhouse, the black cloth of his fighter's trousers flapping around his muscular calf suddenly becoming the focus of my attention as panic and lack of oxygen distorted my vision._

_**They always have another trick up their sleeve.**_

_Gritting my teeth, I danced out of the way and then back in again, landing a few solid punches to the soft area just beneath his ribcage. My lungs were filling properly now; I drew deep, steadying breaths as I attempted to gain the advantage from his bad judgement, aiming a swift uppercut to his jaw as he turned._

_**If your concentration never wavers…**_

_It would have been a good blow, had I waited a split second later. As it was my strike brushed his ear – I'd not anticipated the slight bend in his knee as he came around; I'd thought the jaw would be higher than it turned out to be – and in a flash he had me in a headlock, struggling against his vastly superior strength. _

"_I taught you better than this!" he exclaimed, holding me long enough to make his superiority unquestionable before hurling me into the ropes, "Don't you listen to a word I say? You could be a champ if you weren't such a waster like your mother!"_

_Amber eyes watering from the impact, I spun around furiously, incensed by his words. The blood thudded like a drumbeat through my head, drowning out the advice that had guided me before, and with a feral cry I launched myself at him. Blindly I struck again and again, the deflection of every blow making those that followed all the more sloppy with fury. _

'You don't understand! You don't even try! You don't even care! You're just a machine and I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!'_ I raged internally, disengaging abruptly only so as to hurl myself at him in a flying kick._

"_**That's not concentration**__!"_

_His roar broke through my rage-induced stupor too late: he snatched me easily out of the botched kick, teaming my own momentum with his brute force and sending me soaring over the ropes. I wasn't even fast enough to yelp before impact, my full weight crashing down across the first metal bench…_

…focus was never something I could maintain squaring off against my father and I felt myself blush angrily at the knowledge, finally raising my gaze to his. As I had expected, his mouth was a line of disapproval, dark eyebrows furrowed together over cold, unsympathetic blue eyes.

His lip curled and he spoke, "And just what makes you think that was a question? Tell me!"

Wetting my lips, I jerked my shoulder free of his grasp and stumbled to my feet, swatting dirt from my grazed knees.

"My problem," I said slowly, my voice low, "Is having ever listened to you."

It wasn't witty and it certainly wasn't smart, but it incited the response I desired. The backhanded swipe caught me across my already bruised cheekbone, snapping my head around audibly and almost taking me off my feet. Pain spread through my cheek and eye socket, drawing an involuntary whimper from my lips before I bit down hard to stifle the rest.

"Get out!" he snarled, "Get the hell out!"

Wasting no time at all I spun on my heel, raising a hand to cradle my cheek, and ran toward the back exit, glancing back from the doorway to see my father standing stock still where I had left him, the harsh light from the brackets overhead casting such dark shadows over his face that he looked as though he had been carved from insensitive stone.

'_Much like his heart,' _I thought darkly, darting out into the backstreet.

Outside, the sounds of Malmarsh city at rush hour accosted my ears: the low growl of engines as cars crawled through traffic jams punctuated by horn blasts and angry shouts as pedestrians took their lives in their hands and dared to use the pelipper crossing. Tugging the door shut behind me, I made my way toward the street, kicking sodden bits of cardboard that had escaped the dojo's massive bins out of my way. Something squeaked in the gloom, a curly purple tail visible for a second behind a pile of crates before its owner hid itself properly.

I shook my head: rattata were the only Pokémon voluntarily inhabiting this city, and in truth I wasn't at all surprised. Even at street level the smog was visible, if not actually hanging in the air above the river of traffic then staining to black with chemicals the massive stone blocks of the once-grand buildings flanking the road I turned onto. There had been a few trees growing in squares of earth cut into the pavement once but they had since withered and died from the pollution, leaving either brittle wooden spikes yellowed as a result of the pub crawl or just empty plots of dirt, in which rubbish tended to accumulate.

I skirted one of the latter now, then stepped into the gutter to make way for a group of nattering school girls in their sluttish uniforms. All of them managed to pause long enough to eye me up and down with scorn, no doubt offended at having to tolerate such muscle-bound menaces as me cluttering up their pavement.

"You could at least try to cover it up!" one of them called after me once a safe distance separated us, and I didn't need to ask what she meant by it. Wearing black spandex shorts and a white, broad strapped white tank top did nothing to conceal my heavy build, the product of years of intensive training. As far as I was concerned, I was a brick outhouse with poor fashion sense, and I sometimes wished girls like those would adopt the same view and stop applying their standards to me.

Brushing a few errant strands of my rust-red hair from my face and regretting it the instant my fingers grazed my flesh, sending a red hot jolt through my features, I was about to break into a trot when I became aware of someone calling for me. Glancing up, I cast my gaze around until I finally sighted a tall, broad-shouldered figure squirming his way between two cars gridlocked nose-to-tail in the road. I could almost hear the pop as he finally lurched from the miniscule gap, waving his arms like an idiot in case I hadn't noticed him.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I raised my chin and grinned.

"Y'know you could've just gone around the back there, right, Jez?" I commented as he got within hearing range, "That way there'd be no risk of needing a crowbar to get you out."

He rolled his eyes at me, "Yeah, and y'know you could bother getting changed once in a while and avoid looking like some sort of… sort of…" he waved his hands vaguely to indicate my fighter's attire, then seemed to give up in his quest for words. There was a pause as he stared at me for a second, a frown spreading across his honest face, "Ray… what the hell? You look like you've been hit with a girder or something."

I blinked, "What- Oh… Nah, not a girder. A bleacher."

I waved a hand dismissively, turning with an arrogant swagger and continuing onward down the road. He matched my gait easily, picking at the gel in his short brown hair as he always did when he was worried.

"How the hell did that-"

I cut him off, "Don't worry about it. I messed up and fell into it, 's not like anyone picked it off the floor and beat me around the head with the thing."

My snigger went unanswered and trailed off when it found itself lonesome. Turning off the main road into one of the side streets, we passed a game of football in someone's driveway as well as a group of men in plaster-splattered overalls arguing in the lee of a garage door. Coughing self-consciously after tripping over the corner of a loose flagstone, I decided to break the silence.

"Where were you, anyway? I was meant to be sparring with you today, not him…"

Jez shoved his hands into the pockets of his blue tracksuit bottoms, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground, and I pulled to a halt.

"Alright, what's up?" I demanded, resting my hands on my hips.

Still unable to meet my gaze, my closest friend scuffed at the ground with the toe of his grubby sneaker.

" 'S your dad," he mumbled finally, tugging at his collar, "He doesn't want me around anymore. Kinda kicked me out of the gym, 'cause he reckons I'm a distraction to you. Y'know, in _that way_."

I simply gaped, my mind suddenly completely and forebodingly blank.

"And I told him that wasn't true, of course, I mean, if I liked you _that way_ then I'd practically be gay, no 'ffence, of course, but you're just like another of my mates, only smarter and stuff, and probs a lot stronger too, so 's really…" he trailed off, finally daring to glance up at me and apparently not liking what he saw, because he quickly inquired, "Uh, Ray? You alright? Only you're kinda…"

My words seemed to catch in my throat; speaking was like spitting, hawking my meaning up and gobbing it out in segments.

"Who. Does. He. Think. He. IS?!" I choked, my hands balling into fists, "He can't do that! You're one of his best pupils! And my **friend**! Even if it was 'like that' he doesn't have any right…!"

Jez mumbled noncommittally but I hardly heard him; thought had rumbled back into my brain like a thunderhead, and with each thunderous boom of indignation the white hot bolts of fury grew ever closer to striking. That man. That impostor of a father! That taskmaster who had killed off the loving, supportive, protective man I'd known in my childhood and was going to do the same now to the only friendly figure I had-

"**He can't do this**!" I screamed, and before Jez could stop me I was running back the way we came, knocking over a can of paint the builders had left out, kicking the football as it rolled into my path, shouldering through wasters and workers and all the other rabble getting in my damn way before lurching over rubbish piled in neat little squares and vaulting the rattata too slow to move as I raced up to the back door of the dojo, rammed my keys into the lock and turned.

Apparently he hadn't fused with the floor, because the man was gone, leaving the arena in darkness. I didn't pause to turn on the lights – I practically lived here, anyway, and knew the place well enough to leap from the closest bench to the ring, vaulting over the ropes on one side and then the other, down into where the audience would have sat despite the complete and utter darkness. Although I barely paused to catch my balance I slowed to an angry stalk as I reached the corridor, the toes of my boots hissing as they grazed the cheap nylon carpet.

Striding towards his office door, I reached for the handle just as it slammed open and my father stepped out, reading from a sheaf of papers clutched in his hand. Before I had time to think I'd already reached out, smacking the reports from his grip and sending them fluttering all over the place. There was a fleeting second in which he just stared, a look of sheer confusion seeming alien on the harsh, hard lines of that face, and then his temper flared to match mine.

Or at least challenge.

"What do you think you-" he started, only to take an involuntary step back as I took one forward, waving a finger in his face.

"No! What do _you_ think _you're_ doing?!" I snarled furiously, "You told Jez not to come? Because he was _holding me back_? That's a load of bollocks and you know it! I learn way more from him than from you, you hateful, arrogant, stupid-"

"Learn more from him than from me?"

My father seemed to have doubled in size; he loomed over me, eyes flashing and muscles so tense they bulged.

"Learn more. From him. Than from me," his voice was cold now, so cold he didn't need to shout over me – the malice in his gaze had frozen my body in place and my voice with it.

"Uhm…" I mumbled articulately, swallowing.

"I thought not," he growled, "Now pick this mess up and stop spouting crap."

And I nearly did. My knees actually started to bend; I dropped my gaze and felt my resolve slip… But for some reason I glanced up, just for a second, and saw that look of malice again. It was so complete in its hatred, so devoid of any empathy or paternal devotion – it was not the look of a father, it was a look of an oppressor. Tightening my fists once again, I hardened my gaze and stamped my foot.

"No."

He halted in the midst of stepping around me and turned his gaze slowly to meet mine.

"What?"

"No!"

Subconsciously I had sunk into a fighting stance and my voice had changed to suit it, forced up from deep in my chest without even a hint of indecision in its tone.

"I won't! I'm not spouting crap! He's a friend and a sparring partner and you can't just send him away!"

Usually if I reached this stage of conflict my voice would be wavering embarrassingly, tears would be threatening to fall and I'd already know I was only winding myself up for a worse defeat. This time, however, my eyes were dry, narrowed and determined. I would win this argument. There was no way I was backing down. No way I was just going to roll over and submit to him. Somewhere in the back of my mind I saw the path he was prescribing unfurling, long and deserted, without friendship or reward. I gritted my teeth. Complying with that was not an option.

"I can and I have. That's it, girl," he said with a snarl.

"No, no it's not," I insisted, "You _will_ go and tell him you made a mistake! You'll ask him to come back! Beg if you have to!"

"Beg?" he spat out the word as though it were foul, "Raven Thomas, either you can shut up, pick up those papers and submit… or you'll **never**see that boy again, inside_or _outside these walls! I don't give a damn what you think you can get me to do, it's all a pathetic little illusion – _you_ are the underling here, bitch, and so you _will_ do as _I say_!"

I gasped audibly, stepping back as though he'd physically slapped me.

'_He… did he just call me…?'_

"Don't look so surprised," he snapped, turning his back to stalk away, "You knew you had it coming."

'_Had it… coming…'_

I looked down at the fallen papers, barely able to distinguish them from each other as my vision swam with the tears I'd expected before. I'd always held this hope, a tiny little thing, barely worthy of notice, that perhaps he might change back – that perhaps I might see the smile he'd once reserved for me cross his face, even fleetingly, and that the rest of him would follow. He could follow slowly, I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't be impatient over it, so long as it happened eventually, and then we could sit together at mealtime and laugh over it, and this malevolent phantom would just be one of those little things that good memories erased-

'_Never coming back,'_ I realised,_'He's never coming back…'_

The words, echoing in my head, broke the spell and once again I was running. Movement had always made me feel better; I could concentrate on the physical effort and forget about the rest, until exertion had buried it neatly out of sight and everyday cogitation could slowly beat it down until it merged with all the rest, gone for the time being. Perhaps, I hoped, it would work now, because I needed it to, needed it to _so badly_…

The change between indoors and outdoors registered only as a blast of cold air. I was blind to the passing brickwork, the cars, people, traffic lights and shop windows as I bounded down the main road, the tape on my left arm coming free and slapping against my back as though to spur me on. It stung, but not enough. I deserved worse for keeping such fragile little hopes for so long, for actually having faith in them.

**You knew you had it coming.**

No, no, but I should have done. I should have! Stupid Raven, stupid, stupid little waster…

On some level I was aware of the stares of other pedestrians as I raced past them, running in the gutter to avoid having to dodge anyone and splattering myself with filthy water and rotting leaves as tears flows over my swollen, bruised cheeks, but their thoughts seemed irrelevant somehow so I simply kept running, eventually turning into a winding side street when the main road went from dual carriageway to motorway, losing the pavement that had flanked it. I'd never been here before and dusk was fast approaching, cloaking everything in a sinister veil of shadow. Still, exhaustion was the thing that finally slowed me to a jog, not fear – Malmarsh was infamous for its crime rate and as a result I was used to dealing with desperate attempted-muggers and the like – and as I wiped my eyes, squinting, I found myself Forestside.

Nearly, anyway, and I easily corrected that by sneaking through the back garden of one of the houses providing the last boundary between city and nature. With rotting wood and peeling paint against my back I lowered myself to the ground, staring into the maze of tree trunks and undergrowth that started but a few metres away. I hadn't been here in a long while and even then it had been one of the areas that had been changed for human benefit, with trails and signposted lakes and picnic tables with umbrellas extending overhead. This part was wild – the fence behind me, however dilapidated it might be now, had been built to keep things out and those things lurked amongst these trees. There was a degree of… menace here, a lawlessness that even Malmarsh couldn't match, and as I blew my nose as best I could into the hem of my shirt I felt a sudden electric bust of excitement.

Although my limbs were burning from the long run and the ache of betrayal throbbed persistently in my chest, I took a deep breath and forced myself to my feet. I could feel determination brewing in the pit of my stomach, some sort of wild, silly plan working itself out somewhere in my mind, and as I gazed into the mossy darkness the breeze carried fresh air from its depths. It was nothing like the smoky, dirty air I was used to. It was clear and sweet. It smelled new.

Steadily I unpeeled the tape from around my arms, balling it up and tossing it into the garden behind me for the owner to take care of. I wouldn't need it. No one would expect me to be able to fight. So I wouldn't. Taking another deep breath as the wind brushed my bruised and swollen face, I began to walk. Somewhere through the leafy blockade was Olivine and I'd get there eventually.

There was nothing in Malmarsh to keep me.


	2. Prince

**Ancestry**

**The Mechyena Saga**

**O**bsidian** B**lade

II. Prince

_The weight was far too much to bear, but I knew I had to run. Not to reach somewhere, not to escape anything, I had to run so that I could stop._

___It. _

___  
My legs were too short, though. I couldn't think why. But I couldn't think how to run with legs that short, either. And so I windmilled my arms and._

___  
Sort of swam._

___  
Only I didn't know how to swim, and the air kept splashing up my nose and stinging, and before I knew it I was on my hands and knees, and the liquid was thick and warm and oozed around my fingers. It reeked of the city. Metal. And spread like a horrible, dark, sticky lake. Her hair was all wet with it. All the pretty burgundy ringlets. All spread in the horrible, dark, sticky lake. All turning brown, like rot._

_"__Mummy," I said, my voice strange and high and young, my brow furrowing – it hadn't stopped, had it, seemed swimming didn't stop things like running did, only running hadn't either, really, though I hadn't known why I was running at the time, and dad always said ignorance didn't help._

___  
On hands and knees I crawled through the warm sticky darkness. It splattered up my arms to the elbow, over my knees and up my thighs. Now I smelled like the city too. Was it like that last time? Not sure. I think it had all smelled like the city last time, I think, and I think it was in the doorway, in the front, and the dark warm stickiness had been a trail, and I followed it, and she wasn't lying in it, she was reclining, she was against the wall, and it was her head, her head that was oozing all the- Blood._

___  
I think._

___  
She had two mouths this time. One was small and delicate; it didn't gape as well as the other one, so maybe it wasn't as shocked. Two was wide and as I leaned close I could see inside, where everything was shiny and red and purple, and the deep, dark blood gathered and seeped from one side. Two was in her neck, and it drooled black over the pale skin. It drooled a lake. Mummy had always stopped me from drooling or spitting or anything, but maybe it was just the shock. Shock happened when bad things happened, and I knew this was bad because at the time I had shaken her and cried and begged her to wake up. Only she hadn't had the big wet mouth then, so maybe the shock had taken a long time to catch her up. It must have been a better runner than me, anyway, but I was better anyway because I knew what made shock go away, go a long way away and disappear so you didn't even know it was there._

___So I lent forward and her tattered, beautiful, seeping lips loomed close as stooped closer and kissed them. It tasted of oil, cold as ice, and I knew it wasn't mummy but I couldn't stop, it had caught me and the oil was everywhere, it was everywhere and I couldn't breathe-_

_Thorns dug deep into my arm as I thrashed in the dirt, the lancing pain teaming with my own desperate howl and jerking me from a tortured state of semi-consciousness, leaving me blinking and gasping in the twilight. For a while I simply stared through the twisting, serpentine mass of brambles overhead, shuddering uncontrollably, until the hot wet trickling of blood over my forearm elicited a twitch from my muscles. The tiny spasm matched cold water in the reaction it drew from me; suddenly I wasn't only awake but aware, and with a pained grunt as movement drew the thorns from my flesh I crawled forward on hands and knees from the bush that had afforded me protection and retched pitiably into the mass of earth, leaves and humus._

_'__Raven, Raven, that's not how it happened, you know that's not how it happened,' _my thoughts chanted worthlessly as I dug with filthy fingers at the surface of my tongue, fighting to free myself of the taste of oil,_'It wasn't her throat, they didn't cut her throat, you didn't kiss it, there was no oil, no oil and no second mouth, that wasn't what happened, you __**know**__ that's not what happened!'_

_Having dry-gagged until my throat was raw and I could taste blood – real blood, not that slick, terrible substance that had risen from my dream – I rolled onto my side, the forest debris cold through my thin shirt and against my bare arms, neck and aching cheek._

_Bad reasoning. I had used bad, bad reasoning to block out that dream. The trunks of trees, spectral in the darkness, provided little variation from the pitch black that shrouded my vision when I closed my eyes. Both made equally good backdrops for the images that seeped into my mind now, images where blood was red, not black, and where the stricken form of a much-loved mother lacked both a second mouth and __the back of her head_. The scent wasn't of the city, it was _of the blood_, I recalled_, the blood with an underlying hint of her perfume just strong enough to make the scene so real that it became undeniable-_

_I lurched to my feet, muscles cramped with cold protesting satisfactorily as I searched for something, anything, to distract me from the thoughts that were steadily tightening my throat and the muscles around my heart. My eyes flicked skyward: stars, gleaming through the midnight blue of a clear winter night-_

___But the sky had been like any other in the city, orange with pollution_,_and as I'd looked up for some sign of support from anywhere all I had seen was that orange, that choking smog, and I'd known so suddenly that there was nothing in this city safe from its taint-_

_Nonono! The undergrowth, yes, none of that graced the streets of Malmarsh, not even down by the canals. If I brought my face close to the foliage I could just make out the delicate leaves and stems-_

___Dainty fingers splayed, hands palm up, baring her slender, fragile wrists-_

_I clenched my eyes shut – a futile act when the gruesome theatre played on regardless of the stage – and sank to my knees. Trying to distract myself with nature wasn't working and wouldn't work. To my mind, my mother was so important that she automatically overrode anything else once she had filtered through the boundaries in my consciousness, regardless of the situation her dream self landed in. There was really only one thing to do. I groped for the thoughts as I knelt on the forest floor, arms wrapped around myself. They came slowly at first, snippets of a modest living room building up between me and the cold, blood spattered doorstep._

___Dad squatted by the fireplace, a small hill of used matches accumulating at his side as the logs in the grate resisted all his attempts to start a fire. _

_I focused on the sulphuric tang that had hovered in the air and the increasing background noise as Brutus's muttering had intensified. The memory of a flash of silver in the hand of a retreating figure struck out at this new recollection, and with a bestial snarl that scared something in the nearby undergrowth I furrowed my brow and concentrated._

___Intricate patterns of frost on the windowpanes made up the lone indication of the intense cold outside; within that room the light was golden and warm, highlighting the contours of my mother's smiling face as she reclined on the old leather sofa, one arm encircling my waist as I leant against her chest, a massive picture book propped up on my skinny legs._

_"__So, which Pokémon is that?" she inquired in her warm, genial voice, holding my hand in hers and pointing with the other._

___I laughed and swung my legs, the brightly coloured illustrations rocking violently, and jabbed at the various stylised creatures portrayed around the page._

_"__Charmander!" I declared, touching the orange scales of the leaping lizard before looking to impress by pointing out the others and naming them swiftly for mum to see, "And that's squirtle and oddish and lapras and sentret and skurskit!" _

___She smiled, congratulating me, and the pride in her expression swathed me like a blanket. She was so beautiful and so lovely; it was like the air was happy in her presence, like she emitted a sunny yellow glow that could ward off any evil…_

_I was barely aware of my shuddering breaths until the first tear escaped the corner of my eye and rolled slowly down my cheek. Reaching up automatically I wiped it on the back of my freezing hand, hiccoughing. The cold gnawed on my bare skin, evident now that I'd been disturbed from my dreamland, and I hunkered down amongst the leaves for warmth. I had no desire to wake up just yet, none at all, so I curled up on my side and lowered my chin against my chest, trying to preserve as much heat as I could long enough for another foray into the past._

_"__Now," brushing a loose curl out of her eyes mum turned the page, "Which is that?" _

___In reverent silence I pressed my hands to the centre of my favourite page, smoothing out any wrinkles in the shimmering, dark blue tissue until I gripped the top corners of the book. This, I thought with the certainty of a five year old, was how to hug a book. If you clasped it too close you would ruin the pretty pictures, but like this it was just me and the page, which no doubt recognised my adoration. I glanced up just for a second, catching the gaze of my father, who smiled openly from his place reclining by the crackling fire he'd eventually managed to kindle in the hearth, the family mightyena resting at his side with its head in his lap. He gestured for me to go on._

_"__Articairion," I said, enunciating carefully as I ran the tip of my index finger lightly around the delicate sky blue feathers of the majestic bird that dominated the page._

___Head held regally on its long, swanlike neck, the Janeran demi-legendary was a sight to behold, with its impressive wingspan and the lengthy tail of glimmering feathers, each tipped with delicate, frosty swirls of dark blue gems. Its graceful wings curved to flank the tiny bird hovering before it: a polienix, as sky blue as its parent but chubby, lacking articairion's long neck and vast plumage. I tended to ignore the latter almost entirely, so overwhelmed by the creature above it._

_"__Articairion and polienix," my mother would always gently correct, ever-adamant about the importance of appreciating the little ones, even though her own Pokémon were massive creatures like arcanine and venasaur, "Can't miss out the baby, now can we? Especially when our Raven does such a good impression…"_

_I felt the heat building in my cheeks as I blushed at the memory of prancing around the room in response, giving polienix's trilling chirp at my mother's instigation. Of all the things I could remember clearly, it would have to be that sound – it echoed so accurately in my ears now that it was almost as though it was actually-_

_Blinking, I froze, my attention very suddenly very intent on the present. My ears strained to sift through the constant background noise of the forest, the rustle of undergrowth and the low hooting of hoothoot and noctowl, even as the tempo of my heartbeat rose to the point of distraction. But there – there it was, I was sure of it!_

_Darting to my feet with a fighter's speed I paused again, listening, until that distinctive trill perforated the night again, giving me a heading. Ignoring the stiffness in my limbs and the throbbing of my bruised face, I wiped a few tickling tears from my chin and headed to the left, navigating my way carefully over the gnarled roots of trees with whatever speed I dared to muster._

_I was too focused to really mull it over in my head, to mar hope with reason, so I let the moment carry me forward, pushing my way through bushes and shaking off the undergrowth that grasped at the laces of my shoes. The call came sporadically, sometimes leaving me hesitating and worrying that perhaps I'd imagined it all until I'd catch it again, louder now but carrying a terrified note that only spurred me to move faster. Leaping over a muddy pit and landing awkwardly on the far side, I had paused to check my ankle when the avian voice I was following let out an alarmed shriek so nearby that I jumped at the sound, heart pounding._

_"Polienix?!" I cried foolishly, forgetting my smarting joint as I broke into the jerky run the terrain limited me to._

_A menacing growl was all it took to correct my course: bursting into a small clearing I barely had time to register the shaggy silhouette of a young ursaring towering over a coiled mass of roots before my flying kick had connected with its right shoulder, sending the surprised Pokémon crashing sideways into the bracken. Bouncing on the balls of my feet, I glanced downward into the woody cradle to find a tiny blue bird peering back up at me through terrified black eyes._

_'__Polienix. It's really a polienix!'_ my thoughts gabbled in amazement.

_Even less articulately, "Uh…" was what issued from my throat, the ursaring's angry snort snatching my attention away before I could produce anything more useful. I leant into a fighting pose, squinting into the darkness to make out the hefty creature as it hauled itself to its paws with a crunch of bark under massive bladelike claws. Although the gloom masked the details there was no doubting the sheer brute strength in that heavyset form; as it turned to face me, starlight glinting against the white of its eyes, I shifted onto my toes. If I wanted to avoid disembowelment I was going to have to move quickly, accurately – there was no doubt the beast could take me out in one swipe. At least it was humanoid and young, not yet fully grown; I knew how to fight this basic shape, although admittedly not usually with the complication of hands the size of my head, armed with what equated to serrated knives for fingers. Gritting my teeth, I levelled my gaze at its chest, concentrating, waiting for the muscles to flex and the shoulders to tense and the arm to strike-_

_"__Are you nice?"_

_My core of concentration was instantly obliterated, attention to detail lost in a flash as my gaze darted about in bewilderment. That voice… it had been in my mind, hadn't it? It would have been lost amongst the other thoughts if it hadn't been so baby like, so childish, so naïve and pure and-_

_A heavy whoosh of air announced Ursaring's strike; I ducked instinctively, white claws scything above my head, and rolled left into a crouch. The bear was powerful but sluggish, I noted as it clumsily stopped itself and turned, piggy eyes squinting down at me as I observed it from the ground. A low rumble emitted from its throat seconds before it struck again, ill balanced to strike at a foe so low to the ground, and I darted forward as the blow sailed overhead once again, this time so close that a claw severed the tie in my hair. Dark red locks spilling messily over my shoulders, I punched up hard just beneath where I envisaged the sternum to be and was rewarded by a wet huff from the Pokémon as the air was forced from its lungs. Quickly I threw myself sideways out of the way of its humongous paws as it staggered forward, sides heaving ineffectually, and then kicked out hard at the nearest ankle._

_It was like kicking steel. Biting my fist to keep from cursing I retreated, maintaining a low ready position even as my eyes watered from the impact. It was lucky, I couldn't help but think vaguely, that I'd winded Ursaring first… otherwise it could easily have taken advantage of my mistake to relieve me of my innards. Jerking my fist from my mouth, I wiped the strings of saliva away on my shirt before launching myself into another assault, aiming a flurry of swift punches at the belly and sides below the ribcage that left it wincing and staggering back from the blows. It wasn't fleeing, not yet, but there was no doubt I had it on the back foot. I felt the grin spreading across my features at the realisation, the sense of power I usually gained on the cusp of victory in the ring surging up and leading me to dance on my toes, eyes gleaming and martial artist's posture slipping in favour of a taunting slouch._

_"You're nothing more than a hairy Jezza," I jeered at the Pokémon, "Y'just look tough, eh? Got nothing to back it up with!"_

_The bellow of fury that followed was more than enough to snap me to my senses but left me stunned a second too long: a lurch forward wasn't fast enough to avoid the angry swipe and the heel of the ursaring's paw smacked into my ribcage, pure power tossing me sideways. Flailing, my right side screaming agony, I landed on the side of my foot, ankle twisting and knee giving way, dropping me painfully onto a knot of roots protruding from the earth. With a yelp as gnarled bark dug into my legs I collapsed further against the tree trunk, reaching back awkwardly for steadying purchase raw fingertips denied._

_'__Big beast,'_ my thoughts raged, _'It's just a rutting big beast!'_

_It loomed over me now, great globules of saliva dripping from its gaping maw, but I felt no fear, only deep set fury – wild indignation that this had happened. I'd lost concentration against a brutish thing like this? Preposterous. The spark of intelligence in those eyes as they glared down at me was minimal and yet I'd slipped, I'd let myself get overconfident and now it was taking its time dealing the final blow, stupid, arrogant thing-_

_"Oh," I said simply, blinked once and leapt._

_Years of training kicked in reliably; honed muscle sent me straight over the mess of roots and back into humus, the earthy scent registering fleetingly in my nostrils before I was back on my feet, jerking my elbow into where I hoped a kidney might reside. My foe yowled, turning just in time for my second blow to catch it on the snout. Apparently enough was enough for Ursaring; having fallen into precisely the same trap of ego as I had it cut its losses and fled, bounding on all fours into the undergrowth._

_For a while I stood and listened, mucus dripping from my knuckles as the massive shape was swallowed by the gloom and the snap and rustle of its passing faded. When there was no doubt of it I let the fact settle comfortingly in my mind: the beast was gone._

_Which left Polienix._

_I was almost afraid to look. I had faith in my senses, yes. I wasn't one to hallucinate. Yet this… this seemed too unlikely. Too lucky. I wasn't used to luck. Not the good variation, anyway. Why in the world would it show its face now? And for something I'd wished for so fervently for so long? Oh yes, perhaps it wasn't an articarion. Perhaps it wasn't __the_ focus of all my hopes and dreams. But it was something so fantastic, something so rare and unlikely that it stood out from everything else I had experienced of late as startlingly as the bird's own plumage from the dull, moss covered bracken.

_"__I, um, don't want to disturb you…"_

_That voice again, seeming to come from within my own skull. I wet my lips nervously, but shifted my gaze slowly to the prison of wood that caged its icy inmate._

_"__But, um, if you, well, want to eat me, could you do it very very fast? Only, I feel all bad in my belly for waiting and, um, my wing hurts too and… I don't like it very much…"_

_The way Polienix dipped its gaze made the source of the request evident. The ignorantly resigned note in the words – her words, for the voice was definitely female – went straight to my heart and I started towards the trapped Pokémon, doing my best to avoid looking menacing._

_"I'm not going to eat you," I promised her as I drew nearer, adding with a grin to cover the worry the sight of her wing, twisted oddly beside her, incited, "Polienix meat gives me indigestion."_

_She winced back at my words, only to let out a strangled cry of, "Polli-ee!" as the movement jarred her wing. Her black eyes brimmed with tears._

_"__You've eaten us before?"_ she sobbed pitiably, extended limb shaking painfully, _"One of us? One of my sisters or brothers?"_

_"No, no," I backtracked quickly, reaching out automatically only to pull back sharply when she jerked her injured wing again trying to get away. "I was joking, I've never eaten any of you. Never even seen a polienix before. Only know what you are from books and things, don't worry. And hell, I just saved you, didn't I? Give me a little credit, eh?"_

_The tiny creature didn't respond, head lowered against the lighter coloured plumage of her chest and eyes tightly shut. Her small beak gaped and the fast, uneven breaths she took filled my stomach with lead. Wary though I was of frightening her again and making things worse, the fear I felt for the poor Pokémon drew my hand forward, fingers brushing her shoulder delicately. Polienix failed to withdraw this time, though it was impossible to tell if she'd accepted my words or was simply too weak to move, and I found her feathers slick with liquid – water, a cautious sniff confirmed. Lessons from the past reminded me of her ice-type nature, of how both polienixes and their evolution had feathers perpetually dusted with frost. If that had melted…_

_I swallowed, eyes darting to her wing. Pulled almost vertically from the shoulder, it was twisted awkwardly against the joint and the v of the roots that held it fast was coated with feathers, shafts snapped and down frayed. Although it was hard to be sure in the dark, the flesh seemed swollen beneath what fluff remained and she stirred as I touched it gently._

_'__She must have dived for cover,'_ I reasoned as I grasped the wing, trying to drown out the pained peeping with my own thoughts, _'And her body got through the wider part of the gap… but the wing trailed behind a bit – maybe she hit it at an angle? – and caught where it gets narrower, jerked and twisted so it was really stuck, and because she couldn't lift herself any higher she just tried to pull it down which-'_

_"__Stop! Please stop!" _Polienix cried, _"You're hurting! That hurts!"_

_Although my initial desire was to do as she said I gritted my teeth, took a deep breath and pulled the wing towards me. At first it resisted, but with a horrifying snap and an agonised scream that sliced through the night and silenced all else for a long, terrifying second it jolted free, Polienix's body hauled from the ground just long enough for me to slide the wing towards myself and then drop it through where it would fit. The Pokémon reeled back immediately, squawking and sobbing as she lurched against the wall of earth and roots at the back of her prison. Soil crumbled from the sides, black against the splayed feathers of her wings, the right of which lay at an unnatural angle beside her, quivering in the twilight._

_"__Why? Why did you do that?" _she wailed, her psychic voice breaking and quavering, _"I asked you to stop… I asked you to stop…"_

_The most I could do was shake my head and bite my lip, stepping back as the memory of that terrible snap echoed in my skull. I'd broken it. Broken her wing. How rash was I? How ridiculously, stupidly impulsive and unthinking? I'd seen the problem and used brute force to fix it, without even asking her, without even readying her for the pain or considering a gentler method._

_Rubbing the heel of my hand against my temple revealed the cold sweat breaking out across my brow; I swallowed, sick with guilt, and looked around as though this dark, cold, unpeopled forest might somehow correct my mistake, sweep in and take over the situation so it wouldn't just be my fault, so that the fate of a young, helpless creature wouldn't rest so squarely on my shoulders. But the night air swirled impassively around us; every crackle in the undergrowth transformed into a hungry predator stalking the tiny bird that hiccoughed quietly under the roots of a tree, shuddering violently but otherwise still, and there was no disputing the hard responsibility clamping my ankles, keeping me from running._

_I took a deep breath. "Polienix, I'm sorry."_

_Pained sobbing was the only response; she clenched her eyes shut and pulled her head in closer to her body._

_"Really sorry," I added, bowing my head, "I just wanted to help… I mean, Ursaring could've come back, or you might have starved or something…"_

_Opening her eyes half way, Polienix stared up at me._

_"__I… still can't move,"_ she said, words soft, weak but full of accusation, _"And I wouldn't have starved! My mummy'd save me first."_

_Her eyes gleamed defiance at this and she puffed up her chest proudly, only to squeak and wince back as the movement jolted her wing. I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids, trying to think clearly. Maybe her mother would help – __an articairion! There was an articairion nearby! – _but she'd not bothered to show her face when that urasring was after her daughter, which didn't make me overly confident about the prospect.

_"Your mummy isn't here," I reminded the bird Pokémon, talking over her retort. "And I am, so I'm going to help."_

_"__Your help hurts!" _she declared shrilly, _"I want my mummy!"_

_"Well she isn't here!" I felt my patience dissolving. "You don't really have much of a choice!"_

_Climbing over the tangle of roots she sheltered under, I reached up to one of the lower branches of the tree, muttering, tested its strength with a few sharp tugs and then pulled myself up with a grunt until I was sitting astride it. The rough bark bit through my thin black spandex shorts, causing me to shift uncomfortably, but I did what I could to ignore it, focussing on a particular branch a short way above my head. Although guilt still pooled in my gut a film of frustration at the tiny creature had spread over it and that was what pulled my features together into a dark scowl as I struggled to my feet, arms spread wide for balance and knees slightly bent. Thanks to the thin soles of my shoes I could, to an extent, curl my foot around the bough, catching most of my weight on the front slope of my heel. It helped: stretching upwards with both hands I wavered but didn't fall before I clasped my prize in my hands. I glanced down. Beyond the snakelike roots all detail of the land below was lost in murky darkness, which I hoped meant nothing more potentially puncturing than a carpet of leaves awaited my feet._

_Gritting my teeth, I tightened my grip and yanked down hard on the branch, rewarded by a resounding splintering sound and the high-pitched whine of bark stripped from the trunk; it held my weight for a second as I teetered forwards, then gave way, both of us dropping into the gloom below._

_"__See! You even hurt trees!"_ cried Polienix as I hit what was thankfully humus, first with my feet, then my knees, then my knuckles. There was a feverish, high pitched note to her voice, but the smarting pain in my hands drowned it out.

_"For your sake!" I snapped, lurching to my feet with stick in red-knuckled hand._

_Planting the tapered end firmly in the ground I stood down hard on it, breaking off the narrowest section, then forced away all the small twigs protruding from it with the heel of my shoe. The scent of sap and young, damaged wood soon hung in the freezing air but I paid it no heed, working away until I had a short, fairly straight splint in my hands. I trudged back over to Polienix, who had since slumped back in the dirt, watching me through heavy lidded eyes that looked as though they should be too tired to produce such a stubborn, angry glare._

_"Listen," I sighed as I sat before her and began to unthread the laces from my boots, "I messed up, I'm sorry, I'm doing what I can to fix it. I'll splint your wing and we can go to Olivine, okay? They have a Pokémon centre there, a place with nice nurses and people who will help you get better. Ever heard of one of those?"_

_She shifted her head slightly, feathered cheek speckled with soil._

_"__Daddy told me all about them,"_she informed me slowly, _"He said they were… good, with food and squishy places to sleep… But you just make lots of mistakes, can you really take me there…?"_

_I flinched at her words, the insult cutting deep when it came in that young, truthful voice. "You just make lots of mistakes" – yes, yes, thank you for that, I was already aware…_

_Biting back my bitterness, I finished removing the last loop of shoelace and set it beside the first, the tongues of my boots lolling out, unrestrained. They wouldn't provide any support whatsoever, I realised as I eyed the loose material that, no longer pulled tight around my ankle, now brushed the ground. Arching my foot experimentally, I wrinkled my nose as it came all the way out, then tossed it and its counterpart away into the bushes. Seemed I was going to have to go barefoot._

_Trying to ignore the painful implications this raised, I lifted the stick and the laces and moved forward on my knees, reaching out to Polienix._

_"I promise it won't hurt this time," I said, holding my hands out in entreaty, then paused and reconsidered, amending carefully, "Well… it will a little… but it'll mean I can carry you, right? Otherwise we won't make it to Olivine."_

_Her eyes opened further, a shimmering, pale lilac glow emanating weakly from her body. Hesitating, hands outstretched, I watched her lids slide shut again just as strange pressure built up in my temples._

_"What are you d-" I started to demand, but __there was cold._

_And with a shuddering gasp I fell forward, barely managing to catch myself as the same sharp, burning ache that usually tailed a sudden movement thrust itself through my muscles. The certainty that for a second I had been frozen, unable to think or move, settled its bulk uncomfortably in my mind; I shifted as though physical movement might lift the pressure between my eyes, shaking my head and rubbing at my eyes to no avail._

_"__Raven Thomas,"_ Polienix said, drawing my attention to her purple-swathed form.

_As I watched, trembling with the residual feeling of helplessness, the light receded from the tiny bird, revealing exhaustion threaded with defiance._

_"__I'm sorry," _she continued, her words increasingly familiar as she proceeded, _"I just wanted to help… I mean, Ursaring might have come back, and then you would have had to fight him again to save me like you promised, and that probably wouldn't be very fun…"_

_The pressure, I realised, had disappeared entirely from my brain. I felt normal – save for the memory of a suspended second so fleeting it had only registered after having past and the pressing suspicion that the creature I had presumed innocent and naïve was now making some sort of jab at me with my own words._

_"What… what was that?" I asked breathlessly._

_"__You said you knew about me from human books," _she commented, _"Human books have lots of information in them, don't they? So you know that all polienixes have psychic powers… don't you?"_

_I nodded faintly, feeling belittled. "That doesn't answer my question…"_

_"__I wanted to make sure you really were going to help. I don't like hurting very much."_

_She seemed stronger now, or perhaps braver, and made no move to stop me as, shaking my head at the thought of psychic intrusion, I took up my rudimentary tools and did what I could to bind the broken wing to the splint, though even with this newfound strength she couldn't contain a few high-pitched yelps and pained twitches. I gritted my teeth as I worked, trying to keep down the uncertainty my own medical ignorance incited as I tied the laces as tightly as I dared, trying to keep down the bile that rose in my throat when shards of the delicate bone moved beneath Polienix's cool skin._

_She swallowed loudly when I finally moved back, eyeing the pathetic brace of wood and greying shoelace that now held her damaged wing. The similarities between this and those I had once tied to unoffending teddy bears' various floppy limbs whilst playing doctor did nothing to allay my fears as to how long it would hold; biting my lip, I glanced up into the branches of the trees overhead, pondering if some sort of leaf binding might help. I could overlap them, make a sort of sling…_

_A faint but definite sound turned me on the spot, on my feet before I'd even registered the urge to rise. Despite the cold night air I could feel the heat spreading through my ears, my heat beat suddenly deafening but failing to block out the second, confirming call._

_"__That sounds human…" _saidPolienix from the ground, cursed hopefulness in her tone, _"Maybe the human can help us!"_

_I was already shaking my head, taking a half-step back and then turning, dropping to my knees and reaching out to Polienix, lifting her even as I babbled a broken request for her permission and another yell sent me scurrying, jolting the poor Pokémon in my haste. This was not like earlier. I wasn't chasing the sound. I wasn't racing toward a dream._

_"Raven bloody Thomas!" my father's voice boomed again._

_I was fleeing a goddamn nightmare._


End file.
